


glad and golden hours

by missgiven



Series: trim the hearth & set the table [6]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: AU: American Omens, Christmas, Christmas Decorations, Domestic, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21764779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missgiven/pseuds/missgiven
Summary: Just 1,100 words wittering on about how American, Virginian Aziraphale decorates for Christmas. (Hint: it's your southern grandma's house that you're obsessed with. Down to the hard candy.)"Aziraphale seemed to revel in doing up the house like a representative of Southern Living or Garden & Gun was about to drop by for tea (sweet; iced) at a moment’s notice."
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: trim the hearth & set the table [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564021
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	glad and golden hours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rennish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rennish/gifts).



> You know those posts that are like, "what if Aziraphle was a southern pansy from the American South?" That's it, that's this fic.
> 
> Specifically, he is a Virginian, partially because I'm a gay Virginian and I love my state, but mostly because I'm right.
> 
> This fic is written from Crowley's grouchy but loving POV but rest assured this fic is just a love letter to the 1950s Christmas aesthetics my wife and I both inherited from our beloved Virginian grandmothers. (Although our #minimalist vibes keep our actual place pretty well in check. This Aziraphale is my wife's id.)
> 
> Um, established relationship because why not. I don't know if it's before or after the apocalypse didn't happen. I'm just here for the decorations.

Aziraphale’s house, Crowley thought, was a nightmare. 

He lived in Colonial Williamsburg largely because it was where he had lived since he’d come over on a ship in the seventeenth century. Crowley thought it was distasteful, and had intentionally kept lodgings in New York for some time to try and tempt Aziraphale north. But Aziraphale would not budge, so Crowley had seen little option but to settle down in Williamsburg himself by the 1800s. It was by turns boring and horrifying (relying on the labor of enslaved individuals in the nineteenth century? barbaric) and Crowley had taken a long nap to settle in. He was kept busy abroad in Europe for most of the early twentieth century, and by the time he settled back in the same city as Aziraphale in the late ‘40s, some rich asshole had bought up land and started making noise about Colonial Williamsburg, an indoor/outdoor museum which featured people in bad replicas of 18th century dress. It gave Crowley hives.

Aziraphale, though, reveled in it. See: nightmare.

He kept a bookshop on the first floor of his house not far away from the main stretch of buildings in a dwelling that had somehow lasted from the early 1700s straight on through. He did not advertise at all, and very few people even realized there was a bookstore tucked just off the main tourist path, which was of course how Aziraphale liked it.

Colonial Williamsburg, as an institution, seemed perplexed that they did not own this old-fashioned shop and residence. Every few years they sent folks calling on Mr. Fell to find out if he would be willing to sell, and allow such an historic property to transfer into the foundation’s capable hands. These individuals were fed cookies and sent off with such firm well wishes that it seemed to dissuade anyone from returning, at least until institutional memory faded a few years down the line.

Aziraphale seemed to revel in doing up the house like a representative of Southern Living or Garden & Gun was about to drop by for tea (sweet; iced) at a moment’s notice. The bookshop and Aziraphale’s residence were covered in “colonial” bric a brac. There was an honest-to-whoever bird bottle hanging outside the window and a pineapple shaped door-knocker. The molded soaps in the bathroom smelled of magnolia. Blue-and-white china lurked around every corner. There was a dish of hard candy on the coffee table in the den that Crowley always ate out of, and never knew why, because it was usually dreadful (old and gone a bit sticky). In the front of the house was a dogwood tree that made Crowley sneeze if the wind blew the wrong way.

Christmas time was the worst of a bad lot.

At such a time of year, people who lived within the bounds of the historic site were invited to decorate their homes with “period” decorations of greenery and fruit.

“It’s not like it’s actually period,” Crowley sniped to Aziraphale. “We would have known better than to waste oranges and pomegranates and who knew what else. Bit of greenery on the fence post _after_ Christmas day, what more do you want, get on with the winter.”

Aziraphale looked down approvingly at the wreath Crowley was assembling for Aziraphale’s front door. “Try adding in the sweet little baby apples I found at Whole Foods, sugar,” he advised.

Crowley huffed and grabbed for the baby apples.

After he’d finished the wreath (he’d done quite a good job this year), it was time to hang it up, while Aziraphale tidied the mess of the kitchen table. 

Once the table was tidy and the wreath was hung, it was time to bring down the rest of the Christmas decor from the attic. The attic was not original to the house, and had in fact been manifested onto it by Aziraphale in 1957, when the angel had been bit with a Christmas bug and gone on a shopping bender, the results of which necessitated the attic. 

Of course Crowley had to bring down box after box of decorations for Aziraphale each Christmas. As if they couldn’t just miracle it down with a snap of the fingers. As if Aziraphale was not perfectly capable of bringing decor down and decorating himself!

“I think you just like to stare at my bottom on the attic ladder,” Crowley accused, handing a faded plastic box down.

“You’ve got it, sweetie,” Aziraphale said, popping Crowley affectionately on said bottom after taking the box from him.

The interior decorations started simply enough with a white taper candle in each window. Crowley approved of the old candle-in-the-window. _That_ was classy. Even the foolish “authentic” wreaths were _classy._ The exterior of Aziraphale’s house was old fashioned, but really quite attractive. Much like the angel himself.

The interior, though. What a doozy.

The Christmas china had to be brought out, washed carefully, and displayed prettily in the glass-front china cabinet. The blue-and-white china had to be taken out of that china cabinet and washed and packed away with equal care. There was a shocking amount of china to be had.

“You never _entertain_ ,” Crowley sighed, washing the fussy lid of a fussier gravy pot. “When’s the last time you’ve used more than _two plates_ out of all this stuff.”

“Christmas china is _imperative_ to the seasonal look of the place,” Aziraphale responded severely.

“But you still use your everyday china for most of the month?”

“That is immaterial. On Christmas day, one _needs_ Christmas china.”

Crowley sneered at the Christmas tree on the plate he was washing by now. He’d been eating Christmas dinner off this china for decades and was well acquainted with the perceived necessity.

The china taken care of, they moved on to the task of replacing every. piece. of linen. in the house with its Christmastide counterpart. Christmas tartan blankets over the backs of sofa. Christmas hand towels in the bathroom and kitchen. Christmas _dishtowels_ for wiping up _Christmas messes._ A throw pillow from the $5 section of Target that said “MERRY” in ominous calligraphy that Crowley had bought for Aziraphale as a joke.

He had to learn to stop purchasing things for Aziraphale as jokes. New Year’s resolution for him.

Linens done, it was time to set up the Christmas village and the collection of hand-carved Santas. These tasks belonged to Aziraphale, who fussed that Crowley never set the pieces up correctly.

(Crowley was certain this had nothing to do with the time he’d attempted to, ah, narrativize the Christmas village in a sensational manner. The narrative might have had something to do with a Santa orgy in the village square.)

Finally, they were allowed to decorate the Christmas tree in the living room. Aziraphale frequented the Colonial Williamsburg gift shops, and the tree reflected it. Delicate, blown glass ornaments in silver and gold proliferated, although the collection did include a little white teapot with the legend “No Stamp Act” (another gift from Crowley, who had taken credit for the Stamp Act of 1765). 

Crowley _was_ allowed to set up the antique electric train set that circled the tree.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is sponsored by the awesome date my wife and I took to Colonial Williamsburg earlier today where we spent too long dissecting what these two would be like as Virginians. We also casually closet cosplayed The Idiots, right down to sharing a cheese plate and getting tipsy off a bottle of wine at 4pm.
> 
> Title taken from a later verse of "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear," written by a Unitarian pastor (Edmund Sears) from Massachusetts in 1849.
> 
> Prompt taken from the instagram AdventWord. Day 6: House.


End file.
